The term “hearing instrument” or “hearing device”, as understood here, denotes on the one hand hearing aid devices that are therapeutic devices improving the hearing ability of individuals, primarily according to diagnostic results. Such hearing aid devices may be Behind-The-Ear hearing aid devices or In-The-Ear hearing aid devices. On the other hand, the term stands for devices which may improve the hearing of individuals with normal hearing e.g. in specific acoustical situations as in a very noisy environment or in concert halls, or which may even be used in context with remote communication or with audio listening, for instance as provided by headphones.
The hearing devices as addressed by the present invention are so-called active hearing devices which comprise at the input side at least one acoustical to electrical converter, such as a microphone, at the output side at least one electrical to mechanical converter, such as a loudspeaker, and which further comprise a signal processing unit for processing signals according to the output signals of the acoustical to electrical converter and for generating output signals to the electrical input of the electrical to mechanical output converter. In general, the signal processing circuit may be an analog, digital or hybrid analog-digital circuit, and may be implemented with discrete electronic components, integrated circuits, or a combination of both.
The term “fitting” denotes the process of determining at least one audiological parameter from at least one aural response obtained from a user of the hearing instrument, and programming or configuring the hearing instrument in accordance with or based on said audiological parameter. In this manner, parameters influencing the audio and audiological performance of the hearing instrument are adjusted and thereby tailored or fitted to the end user. For hearing instruments using software controlled analogue or digital data processing means, the fitting process determines and/or adjusts program parameters embodied in said software, be it in the form of program code instructions, algorithmic parameters or in the form of data processed by the program.
WO 01/54458 A2 discloses a communication system linking e.g. a hearing instrument to a programming device and further, via a mobile device such as a cellular phone, to a communications network such as the internet, and to a server computer. The communication system is used to provide instructions and program code to update the hearing instrument software or its parameters. For example, an aural response is determined by executing a program downloaded from the server to the mobile device, then response data is uploaded from the mobile device to the server. A fitting program executing on the server determines program or parameter updates which then are sent, via the mobile device and optionally through the programming device, to the hearing instrument. In one embodiment, the mobile device comprises all the software needed for fitting, so it must not be downloaded from the server or executed on the server. However, in this as in all the other embodiments presented, any use of updated fitting software requires a connection to the server via the communication system.
US 2002054689 shows the downloading of hearing device software from a network to a local client and then storing the software in the hearing device.
Despite the general enthusiasm for interconnecting all kinds of electronic devices, the fact remains that a large percentage of hearing instrument users and also audiologists do not have access to a communications network such as the internet today. As long as this situation persists, deploying fitting software, that is, distributing and applying modified fitting software remains cumbersome and will have to involve shipment of some kind of data medium.
One consequence of this state of affairs is that different versions or releases of the fitting software and of the hearing aid software, with which the fitting software interacts, must be carefully synchronised. When hearing instruments with modified internal software leave the factory, the fitting software in use by several thousands of audiologists must be updated. This severely hampers the flexibility and the distribution of new software releases, both in hearing instruments and of fitting software.
EP 0 794 687 A1 discloses a method for determining a transmission characteristic of a hearing instrument. According to this method, a program to be executed by a hearing instrument processor is generated by an external device. This generation process is based, among others, on hardware parameters describing the physical setup of the hearing device, which hardware parameters are stored in the hearing instrument and transmitted to the external device together with data characterizing hearing situations encountered and recorded during the use of the hearing instrument. The fitting software running on the external device must be programmed to recognize the predetermined possible hardware configurations and to generate a new software that works on said hardware configuration.
The abovementioned problem of how to distribute new fitting software that is adapted to the features of new hearing instrument software remains.